


The Machine

by TheAmazingAnigirl



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Genocide Route, Other, Some Violence/Angst, Souls, cuteness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-13 13:54:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10515090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAmazingAnigirl/pseuds/TheAmazingAnigirl
Summary: This is why Frisk and Flowey should never mess with Sans' stuff...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, Undertale. Best video game I’ve ever played.  
> You know a game is amazing when I feel guilty for trying to reset the game and see the different outcomes. You know a game is amazing when a fricking talking flower becomes a downright tragic villain and a pun-loving skeleton becomes a badass boss. Seriously, this is the oddest game I’ve ever played, and it’s also probably the cleverest. I love it, I love it so much.  
> This fic got its spark from a comic called ‘If…’, by Hazespawn. You can look up the dubbed version of the comic on Youtube or read it on Deviantart. I HIGHLY recommend you check out Hazespawn’s work, especially “Judgment Hall”. Fantastic, and beautiful as well.  
> Oh, and also in this story Frisk is a boy (I don’t know why, but the second I saw the character I thought ‘boy’, and the way I played him he sort of came off as boyish in a Oliver Twist kind of way). Chara is a girl in this version. Napstablook is agender. Mettaton is perfection (that’s a gender, right?)  
> Also also, this story has Sans as Frisk’s dad, which means implied Soriel (not gonna be directly seen). I support the pairing, but I understand the other side as well (I love Goat Dad too, guys!). Please don’t flood the comment section with shipping war bullets, guys, that’s what Youtube is for.  
> Also also also, reviews are appreciated!

“it’s a beautiful night outside…”

The child felt his sins crawling up his back as he faced off against the skeleton. Sans’ left eye was glowing a sinister shade of electric blue.

“crickets are chirping…the stars are shining…”

The skeleton raised his hand and the child felt his soul grow heavy. He looked down and noticed a heart, a dark blue heart, glowing on the chest of his striped jumper.

“on nights like these…kids like you…”

He felt his feet rise off of the ground and, in spite of his efforts to escape the magical grasp, the child was unable to free himself from Sans’ blue attack.

“ _…_ should be _going to bed!”_

Frisk yelped as he was pulled away from his fort of pillows and right into his step-dad’s bony arms. He wriggled and whined.

“No faaaair!” he cried. “Magic attacks aren’t allowed! That’s cheating, and Mom says cheaters are the worst!”

Sans’ left eye returned to its normal shade of white once the little seven-year-old savior of the monsters was securely in his arms. The perpetually smiling skeleton chuckled and began to lackadaisically stroll up the stairs.

“tori also said you had to get eights hours a’sleep or she’d have my head…”

“Well, that’d be a good thing,” said Frisk with an impish smile. “’Cause that would make her the **_head_ -**master!”

Sans laughed even as, upstairs, he heard his brother cry out in frustrated fury.

“SANS, STOP TEACHING THAT INNOCENT HUMAN SOUL SUCH UNFUNNY HABITS!”

“i’m so proud,” was Sans’ only response. He had barely been the boy’s adopted step-father for a month and already his influence was rubbing off on the kid. By the time Frisk hit puberty he’d be punning like a pro!

“I’m not innocent!” cried Frisk, “But I am determined!”

And with that, the child detached Sans’ arm. Frisk (with his step-father’s arm still holding onto him) fled to his pillow fort, diving into the plushy structure. Sans, who despite being rather brittle was quite used to having his limbs detached by the occasionally unruly boy, merely strolled over to the fort and peeked inside. Frisk was clutching Sans’ arm protectively.

“good escape kid,” said Sans, “i’d give you a hand, but you’ve already got it!”

Frisk giggled. “You said I could stay up a little later…”

“i said that _two hours_ ago. and i said you could stay up an extra ten minutes… _two hours ago.”_

“Well, _you_ fell asleep on the job, so whose fault is that?” Frisk retorted.

“good point. still, you’ve gotta go to bed.”

“C’mooon, just a little longer? Mom’ll never know.”

“oho!” laughed Sans. “she’ll know, kiddo, she’ll know. tori _always_ knows. now give me my arm.”

“Nuh uh!” replied Frisk obstinately.

“alright, you asked for it…”

“Asked for… _ah!”_ Frisk shrieked as Sans’ disconnected arm suddenly turned on him and started tickling his tummy. The child squirmed and squealed, but still refused to release the arm and refused to submit to his long-overdue curfew.

“jeez, you are determined. alright, kid, what’s it gonna take?

The tickling paused. Frisk took a deep breath and beckoned for Sans to come closer so he could whisper his desire.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “We’ve gotta go to Muffet’s bakery…”

“ _blegh!”_ was Sans’ response. “you serious? those doughnuts taste like expired spider-webs…”

“I didn’t finish,” said Frisk, smiling impishly as he added, “And when we go there we’ve gotta take Uncle Papyrus’ convertible…and when we give it back…”

He reached under a nearby pillow and pulled out a whoopee cushion. Sans had to cover his mouth to keep himself from bursting into laugher. He wasn’t sure what would be funnier: the freak-out his little brother would have as a result of them borrowing his car or Papyrus’ reaction to finding such a funny surprise once he sat down in the driver’s seat.

“deal,” he said with a wink. “but keep faking resistance for now or pap’ll get suspicious.”

“Right,” agreed Frisk with a wink, handing his step-dad his arm. Once Sans had managed to re-attach his limb his eye glowed cyan and he lifted the child out of his pillow fort and into the air while Frisk loudly objected. The kid was gonna have to work on his acting skills a bit, Sans decided. Even though he was getting better at feigning anger he still smiled that silly smile of his as he ‘begged’ to be put down (turning up the volume considerably once they passed Papyrus’ room).

“SANS, ARE YOU DUNKING THE HUMAN AGAIN!? THE GREAT PAPYRUS CANNOT ALLOW HIS FRIEND TO BE DUNKED!”

“too late!” Sans shouted as he casually tossed the young human into his room. Frisk landed on his pillow, nearly hitting his head on the bed-frame but managing to sit up without bumping his skull.

“six points! no concussions this time!” said Sans. “see you tomorrow, kid…”

His voice trailed off fondly. _See you tomorrow_ was a form of farewell he had only recently started to use. He could do so without feeling like a filthy liar now since the little anomaly that was currently straightening out his blanket had assured him that there would be no more RESETs.

No more RESETs. No more uncertainly. No more tomorrows that would never come. That godly power was no longer in irresponsible hands and Sans could sleep soundly knowing that he would indeed see Frisk and Papyrus and everyone tomorrow.

His good mood was destroyed, however, by a sickly sweet voice: “Tomorrow, Trashbag? Hehehehe! Don’t be so certain…maybe tonight’s the night I finally decide to strangle this little goody-two-shoes in his sleep and reset it all. Wouldn’t you like that?”

Sans cast a hateful blue eye towards a small sentiment flower that was resting in a pot on Frisk’s desk. The former cause of all Sans’ woes, the hateful entity that had once possessed the power to RESET, smiled devilishly. Flowey had (unfortunately) been living with Frisk since the barrier had been broken. The kid was sometimes too nice for his own good. Not only had he spared the wretched weed, but he’d even gone so far as to scoop the miserable waste of magic into a pot and take him home as some psudo-pet/roommate.

 _Why_ was anyone’s guess, but for some reason the kid was attached to the sentient plant. Sans, for his part, trusted the kid’s judgment enough to _not_ destroy Flowey with his gaster blasters right then and there.

“ _and_ ,” said Sans, “how ‘bout we go to the park after we, er, _borrow_ pap’s car tomorrow? see some flowers that aren’t so _thorny_.”

He glowered over at Flowey, who rewarded him with a scowl of his own. Sans hadn’t known it until Frisk had explained, but it had been Flowey that had been screwing with the timeline for far too long, turning his life upside down and inside out, making him lose all sense of worth and motivation. He had known for some time that something, someone, was messing with the timeline, but his memory hadn’t been good enough to remember who it was. Sans had sensed Frisk’s power on the day he emerged from the Ruins and had mistakenly thought that he was the horrid anomaly. Not so, and thanks to Toriel he hadn’t made the world’s biggest mistake by decimating his supposed archenemy right there and then.

No, his archenemy was sitting securely in a pot that Frisk had decorated with all sorts of shimmering stickers. Smiley faces, hearts, rainbows, the congratulatory stickers that Toriel sometimes gave to children who did well on tests, and there was one bright yellow sticker that Frisk and Papyrus had made which read in bright bubbly letters: _Join the Flowey Fan Club!_

Suffice to say, Sans had declined that invitation and the Flowey Fan Club remained a mere two members strong.

Frisk, meanwhile, barely paid any mind to Flowey’s threats, but he beamed at the word ‘park’ and nodded eagerly.

“good. then get some sleep,” said Sans, flicking off the lights with a wink and shutting the door.

The room was totally silent for a moment as Frisk sat upon his bed, waiting for his step-dad’s sluggish footsteps to fade away. When he was certain that Sans was gone, Frisk turned to Flowey. The moonlight that managed to slip through the blinds allowed him to see that Flowey’s expression had changed from one of malice to one of weariness.

“Tired?” Frisk chirped. Flowey huffed.

“Next time you and that comedian decide to jump around like imbeciles, could you do so a bit louder?” sneered Flowey sarcastically. “I think there were some monsters in the Underground that weren’t _rudely awakened!_ ”

“There aren’t any more monsters into the Underground, Flowey, at least not on a permanent basis,” said Frisk.

“Ooooh, big words,” scoffed Flowey. Frisk hopped off his bed and tip-toed over to his desk. He sat in his chair so that he and Flowey were almost eye-to-eye and smiled at his roommate.

“Why d’you always gotta be so mean when Dad’s here, Flowey?” he queried. “You’re not usually so mean to me, not anymore.”

“Keeping up appearances. Plus I’m getting back at him for the sheer number of resets I had to go through because of him. Also, will you _stop_ referring to that buffoon with a deferential paternal title?!”

“Uhm…what?”

“ _Stop calling him ‘Dad’, you idiot, he’s too stupid to be your dad!”_

Rather than reacting with umbrage, Frisk smiled. “Awww, are you saying I’m smart, Flowey?”

“No,” denied Flowey hastily. “I’m saying _he’s_ stupid.”

“He’s really not, Flowey. You should know that. Sheer number of resets, after all.”

“Point made,” snapped Flowey. “Still: if you’re gonna refer to someone as ‘Dad’, at least use the title on someone who has _dad_ qualities. Asgore I could accept----reluctantly, yes, but I could accept. Smiley’s not ‘Dad’ material.”

“I think he is,” said Frisk with a nonchalant shrug. “Just like I think you’re friend material.”

“Well, I guess when you put it that way it makes total sense,” sneered Flowey, “You’re a horrible judge of chara…”

Frisk leaned forward and gave the flower a tiny, affectionate kiss on one of his petals.

“…cter,” Flowey finished lamely, turning away so that Frisk wouldn’t see his conflicted, confused, and moderately bashful expression. He would sooner be fertilized than admit it, but Frisk had been getting to him. He suspected it was a side effect of him (no, _Asriel_ ) absorbing all of those souls and subsequently regaining all of the emotions he had lacked before. Joy, empathy, love…it had been downright overwhelming and even though he was once again a soulless creature who could never hope to experience the full emotional spectrum again…a bit of that love, joy, and empathy lingered, and nobody brought out the ghosts of those emotions as much as Frisk.

Not that he would ever admit that, of course. He still had to keep up appearances, after all. Couldn’t let the kid mold him into a doofy, happy-go-lucky moron like he had everyone else.

“D’you wanna come with us to the park tomorrow?” Frisk offered. “I could hide you in my backpack. Dad won’t know. You can stretch your stem a bit, maybe meet a pretty rose while we’re out there, pollinate…”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Flowey admonished. “And I have important sulking to do tomorrow so thanks but no… _mmmnf!”_

He was interrupted as Frisk suddenly covered his mouth with his hand. Flowey scowled furiously at Frisk, but the human child put his finger over his lips, shushing him. He pointed to the blinds and gestured for Flowey to stay quiet while they both peeked out. Flowey’s scowl softened with curiosity.

Frisk removed his hand from the plant’s mouth and leaned over his desk, his nose brushing against the blinds as he peeked out into the backyard. Flowey did the same and saw what had caused Frisk to suddenly become so cautious: the shed. Sans had gone into the backyard and was opening the shed. The skeleton opened the door wide enough for both Frisk and Flowey to spot something inside, something big and bulky, covered with a sheet.

Flowey frowned deeply. “That looks like one of Alphys’ machines,” he observed. “Ya’ think the comedian’s trying to build a machine that’ll make his jokes funny?”

“It’s for _something_ ,” said Frisk. “I asked him about it a couple’a days ago.”

“And?”

“He told me a pun and then teleported away.”

“Typical.”

“What do you think it could be?”

“How in the hell am I supposed to know?”

“Language!”

“Don’t make me teach you a bunch’a _new words_ , you prude.”

“What’sa prude?”

“Oh, forget it. Golly, you’re dumb.”

“I’d be smarter if you’d gimme some definitions!”

“Every time I give you some _definitions_ you… _mmmnf!”_

He was once again cut off as Sans exited the shed and Frisk covered his mouth. Flowey released a muffled growl and glared at the human child even as Frisk’s great brown eyes were pinned on the stout skeleton, who locked the door to the shed and proceeded to go back inside, no doubt to read Papyrus his mandatory bedtime story.

“Will you _stop_ that?” snarled Flowey once Frisk removed his hand from over his mouth. “We’re on the second floor and there’s a window between us! He’s not gonna _hear_ us from here!”

“Was that a pun?” queried Frisk with an impish smile.

“ _No.”_

“You’d be surprised. He’s got good ears…even though he doesn’t have ears.”

Frisk pressed his nose against the window, staring at the shed with an inquisitive and determined look that Flowey recognized and despised.

“Curiosity killed the Frisk,” Flowey said in a singsong voice.

“Vines.”

“Uhm…what?”

“You said sometime ago that you could solve Papyrus’ puzzles, right? You got past some of Alpys’ traps and Uncle Papyrus’ puzzles in other timelines by using your vines and stuff, right?”

“Yes…”

“So…could you sneak into the shed and unlock…?”

“No…”

“I didn’t say _would_ I said _could,_ ” said Frisk sneakily. Flowey huffed. Damn this kid: he couldn’t deny it without selling himself short. Clever boy.

“Yes, I could. _Easily_.”

“So…” Frisk batted his eyelashes in the cutest way he could. “ _Would_ you?”

Flowey, knowing full well that saying ‘no’ would just lead to more obnoxious whining and begging and pleading and crying from the boy, decided to get to the point. “Fine, but only because it’ll inevitably get _you_ in trouble.”

Frisk kissed Flowey once more on one of his petals, causing the sentient flower to turn away in exasperated embarrassment while the boy bounded back to his bed.

“We’ll go early in the morning,” said Frisk. “Dad’ll be at his third job.”

Indeed, Sans had taken on a third job (if one counted his job at the illegal hot dog stand situated behind Undyne’s house to be a ‘job’, which, officially, it was not) at one of Mettaton’s restaurants on the weekends. They had to pay for Frisk’s college fund somehow or another and both Sans and Toriel were quite sure that Temmie wasn’t going to be paying back Frisk for his investment in her higher education anytime soon. (Though they _had_ sold Frisk’s temmie armor…back to Temmie, who bought it for three times its original price, so Temmie _had_ ended up contributing to the college fund indirectly).

“Won’t Toriel be awake?” Flowey pointed out. Frisk laughed.

“Doubt it,” he said, “She’ll be exhausted. She’s gonna be at this parent-teacher meeting all night.”

“Which brat is it this time?”

“Artie Johnson.”

“ _That_ idiot?”

Frisk nodded.

“Didn’t I already teach that kid a lesson?”

Frisk laughed. “Yeah: he still wets himself whenever he sees a buttercup.”

“Good.”

Frisk smiled goofily. “See? You _do_ like me!”

“I do _not_. I wasn’t defending _you_ , stupid, I was defending _my_ territory. _I’m_ the only one who gets to try and murder you.”

Frisk giggled. “G’night, Flowey. Adventure awaits tomorrow!”

“Joy,” grumbled the flower before swiftly following the human child into slumberland.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read so far!

“GOOD MORNING, TINY HUMAN NEPHEW! THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAS WONDERFUL NEWS: I HAVE BEEN REWARDED WITH A DAY OFF! OF COURSE, THE GREAT PAPYRUS REQUIRES NO RESPITE FROM HIS DUTIES AS ROYAL GUARD, BUT NONETHELESS I ACCEPTED IN ORDER TO SPEND THE DAY WITH YOU! EMBRACES!”

Frisk was yanked into a hug so fierce and warm that he nearly dropped Flowey’s pot. At this point he was used to Papyrus proclaiming every Saturday to be a special ‘day off’ (he never seemed to catch on that he had _every_ Saturday off and always attributed it to him outdoing himself in terms of greatness and being granted leave). He hugged his beloved uncle right back, snickering as he heard Flowey gag at the affectionate display.

Unfortunately for the sentient flower, Papyrus immediately took note of his presence.

“OH! I SEE YOU HAVE BROUGHT ALONG OUR FLOWER FRIEND! GOOD DAY, FLOWEY! ARE YOU HERE TO SPEND TIME WITH US AS WELL?”

“ _No…”_ grumbled Flowey.

“Yes!” chirped Frisk.

“ _Frisk…_ ”

“We are both ready to be japed today, Uncle Papyrus! But before that, we’re really hungry. Could you maybe make us something to eat?”

“ _Friiiiiissk…!”_ whined Flowey, but it was far too late as Papyrus’ perpetual giant grin somehow managed to become wider as he positively beamed.

“OF COURSE! YOUR MOTHER IS SLEEPING IN…I SUPPOSE MY BROTHER’S LAZINESS IS BEGINNING TO RUB OFF ON HER! BUT AT ANY RATE, I SHALL PREPARE YOU AND FLOWEY A DELECTIBLE MORNING MEAL! WE SHALL HAVE PASTA IN THE MORNING! I’LL EVEN PREPARE THE PASTA WITH A SIDE OF WAFFLES TO MAKE IT MORE APPROPRIATE FOR MORNING CONSUMPTION!”

“ _Uggggghhhh…”_ moaned Flowey miserably. Though he admittedly liked Papyrus more than he liked the other members of Frisk’s family, one thing that never seemed to change throughout the different timelines was the fact that he couldn’t stand Papyrus’ cooking. And there was no reset button to save him now.

“YOUR MOAN OF ANTICIPATION IS APPRECIATED, FLOWEY, THOUGH NOT ENTIRELY UNEXPECTED! WOULD YOU CARE TO HELP ME IN THE KITCHEN, FRISK?”

“Actually, Uncle Pap, me and Flowey were gonna go outside and look for some prime spots to lay out puzzles. Besides, we wouldn’t wanna get in your way. The more involved you are with the cooking, the better it’ll be, so it’s better if I’m a hundred percent outta your way so it’ll be a hundred percent fantastic.”

“Good brown-nosing,” snickered Flowey.

“I’m not brown-nosing,” Frisk whispered. “What’s brown-nosing?”

Flowey rolled his eyes. Papyrus’ eyes were shimmering.

“OH, OF COURSE! WELL, I’LL GET STARTED! FIND A GOOD SPOT AND HURRY BACK!”

“You’ve got it, Uncle!” said Frisk before he scurried out of the house and to the backyard.

“Ugh,” gagged Flowey. “You do realize that we’re gonna have to _eat_ whatever he cooks, right?”

“He’s not that bad, Flowey! Jeez, you’re such a critic!”

“You try having the digestive system of a _plant!_ If you think that stuff’s hard to eat with a human stomach…”

“Okay, okay,” sighed Frisk, wanting to avoid an unnecessary argument, especially one that involved Flowey criticizing his lovable uncle---one of the best parts about having Sans as his dad was the fact that he could now call Papyrus his uncle. That had admittedly been a bit awkward at first, though (“NOW _THIS_ IS MAKING OUR RELATIONSHIP ALL THE MORE REGRETTABLE…WHOOPSIE! PROMISED NOT TO MENTION IT!”)

They reached the shed in no time. Frisk experimentally tugged on the door but, unsurprisingly, it was locked. He held Flowey up to the doorknob and asked, “Can you handle it?”

“Plant me,” the flower commanded with a smug smile, and Frisk obeyed, scooping his roommate out of his little pot and carefully placing him down on the ground. Flowey dug his roots into the soil, briefly took a moment to enjoy the feeling of warm, fresh soil on his roots, and then quickly burrowed his way underground. Frisk pressed his ear against the door once Flowey disappeared beneath the dirt.

“Flowey?” he cried after a moment of rustling and clinking. The door was thrown open and Frisk fell on his face.

“Ow,” he moaned, and he heard Flowey laugh derisively.

“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Frisk sarcastically. “Well, thanks for opening the door anyway. Be careful next time. I almost crushed your pot.”

He held up the flower’s pot as Flowey used his long, thorny vines to shut the door behind them. The shed instantly became rather dark, but enough sunlight was filtered through the cracks in the roof that Flowey was able to see Frisk and crawl over to him.

“Put me back in,” he commanded. “You know I hate crawling on wood. Hurts my roots.”

Frisk held down the thankfully undamaged pot and Flowey climbed in. Once Flowey had gotten himself situated once more, Frisk stood up and looked around. There was a small set of drawers in the corner beside the big machine, but Frisk decided to ignore the minnow in favor of the trout and immediately whipped the sheet off of the covered machine.

Flowey had been right earlier: the machine did indeed look like the sort of thing that Alphys would build. In fact, it somewhat resembled the DT Extraction Machine that Frisk had seen in the True Lab, except it was much smaller and had a large hole in the center.

“Looks like one of those things from those movies the skele-moron likes to watch,” sneered Flowey as Frisk cautiously stepped inside the machine.

“You mean the sci-fi movies?” replied Frisk. “You’re right. Looks like something from _Star Wars_ or _Alien._ Like that thingy that freezes you in time so you can live for a hundred years!”

“When in the world did _you_ watch _Alien_? Didn’t Toriel say ‘no’?” asked Flowey as Frisk’s eyes found a control panel.

“I just saw a bit of it while I was gettin’ a midnight snack,” claimed Frisk innocently.

“Liar. C’mon, don’t bother. I don’t care. Those parental warning rating are complete and utter… _Frisk!”_

Frisk’s finger was lingering curiously over a big red button. Before the flower could even hope to stop the child, he pressed down on it.

The inside of the machine lit up. The whole area started glowing blue. Flowey felt Frisk hug him tightly to his chest as the room began to disappear into a swirl of cyan.

Then, darkness.

* * *

_"Hee hee...did you **really** think..."_

_Blam!_

_"You...uh..."_

_Blam! Blam! Blam!_

_Flowey’s demented grin faltered he gazed down at the child, whose worried expression had turned into a grin of surprised delight as he experimentally rammed his soul against the ring of ‘friendliness pellets’ that the Omega Flowey had surrounded his little red heart with. Instead of causing him to die once more, the friendliness pellets caused his soul to bounce back and make a silly boinging noise._

_Blam! Blam! Blamblamblamblamblam!_

_Flowey huffed and changed the image he showcased on his facial screen from the freakish monster he had been presenting during the course of the battle back to his usual floral face._

_“Would you STOP that?!” he cried, and Frisk giggled cheerfully._

_“Nah ah,” he chirped. “Too fun!”_

_“Oh, for pity’s sake, can you just let me finish what I was…?”_

_Blam!_

_“I just wanted to…”_

_Blamblam!_

_“Just…monologue…a bit…”_

_Blamblamblamblamblamblamblam!_

_Flowey groaned loudly. “Don’t you have anything better to do!?”_

_“Nope,” squeaked Frisk, and the noise continued even as Flowey tried his best to threaten the thoroughly entertained child._

* * *

 

When Flowey came to he was on his side, still in his pot. He groaned, his head buzzing as he looked up and saw Frisk lying nearby.

If he had a heart, it would have stopped.

“Frisk?” he cried. The boy didn’t respond.

“Frisk? Frisk! _Frisk!”_

The boy didn’t even stir. Flowey snarled in agitated frustration and, straining slightly, managed to roll his way over to the child so that he was nose-to-nose with him. He jabbed at the boy’s nose with the tip of his leaf. Frisk flinched and groaned. Flowey sighed with relief.

“Frisk…” he muttered. “You…you…you IDIOT!”

He head-butted the boy.

“Ow!” yelped Frisk, sitting up straight and rubbing his throbbing head. “What was that for?”

“You pressed the _big red button_ , you buffoon!” shouted the sentient flower. “Have you paid _any_ attention to those sci-fi movies?! YOU. NEVER. PRESS. THE. RED. BUTTON!”

“Okay, okay, that was dumb…”

_“Dumb_ is an understatement!”

“Calm down,” said Frisk, picking up the flower and plopping him on his lap. “We just gotta find out what…happ…”

He looked around him.

“Oh no…”

He looked down and realized what he was sitting upon: a patch of golden flowers.

_They must have broken your fall.._

“Oh, no, no, no, no…F-Flowey…I…I think we might have reset.”


	3. Chapter 3

“RESET?” repeated Flowey, his eyes softening a bit when he saw tears beginning to form in Frisk’s eyes. The flower shook his head. “No, no, that’s impossible…”

Frisk began to sob. “I did bad! I did bad! Oh, no, no, no, I promised Dad no more RESETS…oh, oh…”

He began to cry and his salty tears fell on Flowey’s head.

“Frisk, FRISK!” shrieked the flower, “For pity’s sake, calm the hell down! You couldn’t have RESET!”

“H-how…h-how…do…you…”

“ _Because,”_ snapped the sentient flower, “if you _did_ RESET then I wouldn’t be here right now. I’d be in the next room, waiting to nearly murder you.”

“The…machine…mighta…made…that…different…’cause…we…were both in…side …”

He broke down, hugging the flower tightly and positively bawling.

“Ugh, I’m tempted to rain friendliness pellets down on you right now,” mumbled Flowey. “Look, if we _did_ RESET, even if somehow that machine made us _both_ go back and remember, all of your injuries would be gone and you’d still have your stick and bandage from when you first fell. Do you have your stick?”

A brief check in his pockets revealed that Frisk did not have his stick and the bandage was not wrapped around his arm. In fact, the cut on his arm that he’d had when he first fell down was also nowhere to be seen. He looked on his knee.

“I’ve still got that scab from gym, from last week,” said Frisk, wiping away his tears as his heart rate began to steady and the idea that he hadn’t completely ruined everything began to become all the more possible.

“See?” said Flowey with a knowing smirk. “So something else is going on. Let’s go to the next room. If we don’t run into Toriel, we’ll know it’s not a RESET.”

“O-okay…” sniffled the child, wiping his tears away with his sleeve and standing up. He stumbled out of the oh-so-familiar area and into the next room. There was an empty patch of green grass. No Flowey, and after a full minute of waiting it became clear that Toriel was not about to emerge from the shadows to greet him like a stranger instead of her adopted son.

“Y-you were right, Flowey!” cried Frisk with relief, a smile lighting up his face once more. He entered the Ruins and, surely enough, not a single monster came to greet them as they made their way towards Toriel’s cozy little abode. No Froggits hopped forth, no Whimsons fluttered by, no Moldsmals wiggled sexily. Nobody came, and Frisk’s relief was obvious.

But even as the boy’s eyes began to dry and brighten, Flowey’s confident grin began to fall as something nagged at his nonexistent soul. He had learned to trust his intuition long ago, and his intuition was telling him that something was wrong.

_Nothing seems wrong, though,_ he thought as Frisk opened the door to Toriel’s old house and called out to her. _Maybe that machine’s screwing with me somehow…_

“Mooom?” cried Frisk. “Are you here? Mom?”

No answer. Frisk immediately scurried down into the basement. The door that led out of the Ruins was wide open.

_Just how he left it…_ Flowey thought, glancing up at Frisk and recalling that the child had failed to close the door back when he had first gone back to the Ruins to retrieve the soulless flower.

Frisk seemed to realize this too as he giggled.

“Oh! Oh!” he cried with eureka. “Flowey, I think I know what happened!”

“And what’s that, genius?” asked Flowey. Frisk started to skip towards Snowdin. The sentient flower glanced left and right, trying to hear the sound of a branch being broken or the telltale noise of Sans’ teleporting, but they made it to Papyrus’ old too-wide bars without so much as a pun from the skeleton. He wasn’t there.

“Y’know how Dad can do all of his teleporting stuff?” said Frisk.

Flowey grunted.

“Well,” continued Frisk, prancing past the conveniently-shaped lamp and towards Doggo’s old station. The nearly blind-hound was also absent.

“I think we just did something like that. Like maybe Dad made the machine at first and then learned to teleport on his own. Like it was a prototype and he just doesn’t need it anymore, but when we used it we got teleported back to the Underground!”

“That…makes sense,” muttered Flowey without a hint of sarcasm as they passed by Doggo’s empty station and continued forth.

“Are you okay, Flowey?” queried Frisk with concern. “You didn’t even make fun’a me or anything.”

“No…it’s…nothing…just a feeling…”

That was an odd thing for Flowey to say. As a soulless being he rarely got _feelings_ any more, pleasant or disturbing, but something about the empty environment caused him to shiver, and not from the cold.

“Let’s go check on Mr. Snowman. I haven’t seen him since we left!” suggested Frisk as they breezed through Papyrus’ already-solved puzzles and moved north to where the Snowman would have usually been standing.

But the Snowman wasn’t there.

“Huh,” said Frisk, glancing to and fro. “Maybe…he got bored? Maybe the River Person came by and took him on an adventure.”

“Well, he couldn’t have gone to the surface,” said Flowey, knowing that such a trip would involve passing through the Hotland, a trip that would certainly doom the Snowman.

“Let’s head to Snowdin,” suggested Frisk. “Maybe Dad has something in his old shed that we could use to get back aboveground quicker. It’s gonna take us forever if we have to go on foot…and then we’ll _definitely_ get in trouble.”

“ _We?_ ” scoffed Flowey, finally managing to smile just a tad as they continued, passing by Papyrus’ frozen plate of spaghetti. “You’re the sinner in this situation, buddy, I’m not taking blame.”

“I won’t blame ya’, but y’know Dad’ll probably make accusations anyway.”

“You’re probably right on that,” grumbled the flower, who was used to taking the fall whenever both he and Frisk were involved in some act of delinquency. (Because of course precious, innocent, angelic Frisk could _never_ be naughty on his own, oh no, it had to be the influence of the evil, soulless _flower_ that caused him to break the rules…)

They made it to Snowdin with hardly a hitch. No monsters confronted them, no puzzles japed them, nothing stood in their way as they made it to the tiny village.

“Ah…Frisk…” muttered Flowey as he observed the shimmering lights on the trees and noted the light pouring from the residential windows, “None of the lights are off.”

Frisk didn’t pause as he plodded towards Sans and Papyrus’ old abode, but he did allow his eyes to flicker to the windows of the other houses. He shrugged dismissively.

“Maybe everyone just decided to be eco-unfriendly on their way out,” Frisk suggested with a little chuckle. Flowey frowned, and not at Frisk’s lame attempt at humor.

They reached Sans and Papyrus’ old house, which was the only home in Snowdin that didn’t have its lights on. The house was still decorated with its wreaths and Christmas decorations, but the colorful lights that had previously brightened the abode were all gray.

It was promising, though, since Frisk recalled shutting those lights off when he had helped Sans and Papyrus pack up so that they could move to the surface. He hopped up the porch stairs and knocked on the door.

“Uncle Pap!” he squeaked. “Hello? You there? There’s a human right here, ready to be captured with hugs! Uncle Paaaaap?”

No one answered.

“Whelp!” said Frisk, “Looks like he’s not here.”

“Fantastic.”

“Let’s look in Dad’s shed and see if there’s something we can use to get back home…or at least figure out what happened.”

Sans and Papyrus both had their own sheds in the Underground. Papyrus’ was empty, as he had designated it to be a ‘prison’ for any humans he captured. Sans’ shed, however, was hidden behind the house and though Frisk had stumbled across it during his wanderings, he had never actually entered it.

Frisk planted Flowey in the snowy ground beside the shed. The sentient flower hissed and shivered.

“Sorry, Flowey,” said Frisk.

“Y-you o-owe m-me f-for th-this! Ugh, I hate Snowdin!” snarled Flowey before he dunked under the cold ground.

After a few seconds there was a _thunk!_ That _thunk_ was swiftly followed by a pained, “OW!”

“Flowey!” cried Frisk, getting down on his knees and trying to peek under the shed. Flowey popped up beside his face, the petals on his head slightly bent. Frisk could practically see little stars circling the sentient flower’s head.

“Ow…” grunted Flowey, and Frisk scooped up his roommate, gazing at him with concern.

“You okay?” he asked. “What happened?”

“There’s a two-inch layer of ice covering the bottom of the shed,” hissed Flowey, rubbing his sore head with his leafy arms. “ _Clear_ ice. Hit my head…”

“Kiss!” chirped Frisk, smooching the top of Flowey’s head before he even had a chance to object or duck out of the way.

“Better?” queried the child.

“No…” lied Flowey, hiding his cheeks with his uninjured petals so that the boy wouldn’t see the slightly red tint his face had acquired.

“So you can’t get into the shed?” asked Frisk. Flowey shook his head.

Frisk yanked out his phone. “I’m gonna call home. Maybe Dad can come pick us up.”

“You’ll get in trouble…”

“Well, I’m gonna get in trouble no matter what. Might as well get in trouble sooner and get home sooner too.”

He dialed his home phone number.

“ _Hello,”_ replied a robotic voice instantly. “ _The number you’ve reached is currently unavailable.”_

“Huh,” said Frisk, “That wasn’t even our usual leave-a-message thingy. Lemme call Dad’s cell…”

He dialed Sans’ phone number.

“ _knock knock!”_

A moment of silence.

“ _if you’re a good sport you said, ‘who’s there’. no-one!’_

Another moment of silence.

_Beep!_

“What the heck was that?” asked Flowey.

“His voicebox. He didn’t pick up.”

“Leave a message anyway, maybe he’s just sleeping.”

“’Kay. Uhm, hi Dad! Listen, we, uh…”

“ _We?!”_ snapped Flowey with a glare.

“ _I,”_ Frisk corrected. “I did something bad and now Flowey and me are back in the Underground. We’re gonna head back to Uncle Asgore’s castle and try to exit the normal way, but if you can, come pick us up! Bye! Love you!”

He hung up and shoved his hand back into his pocket.

“We’re gonna _walk?”_ huffed Flowey as Frisk put him back into his pot and balanced the pot (rather impressively) on top of his head.

“Well, _I’m_ gonna walk and _I’m_ gonna carry you,” said Frisk.

“All the way to the barrier? Even without anybody trying to kill us, that’s going to take forever!”

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be fun! Like a walk down memory lane!”

“Yes, great. ‘Oh, look, that’s the tree I died next to seventeen times! Such grand memories!’”

“You’re such a pessimist, Flowey.”

“And _you’re_ such an optimist. That’s not a compliment, by the way. Where the heck are we going? Have you already lost your sense of direction?”

Indeed, instead of heading east, Frisk was skipping north.

“I wanna see if…ah! Yes!”

“Oh,” said Flowey, spotting what Frisk had been hoping to find: a hooded figure that might have been intimidating had they not been humming cheerfully.

“Tra la la…”

“Hello, River-Person!” cried Frisk, waving energetically. “I’m glad to find you here. Would you mind giving us a ride?”

“Of course,” whispered the River-Person in their usual day-dreamingly distant manner. “I love to ride in my boat. Where shall we go today?

“Hotland, please!” said Frisk, hopping onto the boat and carefully placing Flowey down beside him.

“Then we’re off…”

“Thanks, River-Person!” said Frisk, kicking his legs and looking out at the water, enjoying the feeling of the tiny droplets skimming his skin as the boat took off.

He heard Flowey moan something about seasickness and giggled as he patted his little companion on the head.

“We’ll be home soon, Flowey,” he said confidently.

“Tra la la,” sung the River-Person, but their singsong voice suddenly became grim as they muttered, “Goodbye.”

And before Frisk could even hope to ask what they meant by that, the River-Person leapt into the air and their boat flipped over, plunging Frisk and Flowey into the icy water.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who left Kudos!

A year ago, Frisk would have drowned. But Undyne had taken him to the beach over the summer and hadn’t stopped dunking him under the salty water until he was able to swim like a future piece of sushi. He opened his eyes, the icy water stinging his corneas as he searched below the surface of the bitter water for Flowey.

He saw his little companion writhing about, sinking swiftly, and swam towards him. The flower was already beginning to turn blue. Soulless being though he was, even Flowey could drown.

But Frisk wasn’t going to let that happen. He grabbed his roommate and swam to the surface, lifting Flowey above the water before even he allowed himself to take a precious gulp of air.

Both of them coughed. Frisk clumsily swam with one arm while keeping Flowey above the water with the other.

“You okay?” he panted, already beginning to become tired.

“Ok…ay…ok… _ay? Of course I’m not okay! That lousy son of a…daughter of a…that idiot nearly drowned us! In what universe would I just be okay after---?!”_

“All right, all right! I was looking for a short answer. Don’t waste oxygen. Deep breath.”

Flowey paused his tirade and obeyed, taking a big gulp of air as Frisk was forced to go back under the water. Frisk looked around for something he and Flowey could cling to and he was able to spot a large block of ice. Seeing no other option aside from drowning, he swam towards the block. He placed Flowey on the icy square first and then climbed on himself.

“W-well…” stuttered Frisk, getting situated in the center of the ice cube and gazing off at the disappearing dot that was the River Person and their boat. “N-not exactly as warm as the boat…but…this’ll t-take us right to the Hotland.”

“Slowly,” Flowey pointed out, wringing out his leaves and trying his best to get rid of the superfluous water that had gotten into his pot.

“Better s-slowly than not at all…” Frisk muttered, hugging himself and shivering terribly. Flowey noted the boy’s quivering and became moderately concerned. For all of his determination, Frisk was actually a rather fragile child. He wasn’t as strong as the sentient flower and he was obviously freezing. Without a blanket, and given the fact that it would take a few hours to float all the way to Hotland on the ice cube…

Flowey grunted and lifted himself out of his pot, stretching out his vines, retracting the thorns on said vines, and wrapping the vines around Frisk. The child let out a tiny yelp of surprise before a smile came to his cold-nipped face as Flowey wrapped his entire body in vines, giving him a warm floral embrace.

“Thanks, Flowey,” squeaked Frisk, snuggling into the vines while Flowey himself got situated on Frisk’s head.

“ _Humph!”_ humphed Flowey. “If you ever mention this to anybody, I will murder you. Slowly. Painfully.”

“Love you, too!” sighed Frisk happily.

“Don’t get any ideas, you little pervert; you’ve already flirted with every monster in the underground---including your family members, for that matter!”

“I wasn’t gonna flirt with ‘ya, Flowey! Not unless you want me to!”

“Eugh!”

“What noise was that?”

“My noise of ‘You disgust me!’”

“What’s disgusting? Flirting’s just a way to show someone you really love them and wanna be best friends!” cried Frisk innocently. “That’s how I became friends with Moldsmal and Napstablook and a whole buncha’ other people! I love everyone, so I flirt with everyone! It’s just plain logic!”

Flowey burst into a bout of condescending and moderately amused laughter.

“Oh, golly,” he said. “When you finally become a teenager, I am going to have _no_ shortage of embarrassing stories to tell about you. Your reputation will be _decimated._ ”

“Mom told me once that she wants me to RESET before I become a teenager so I’ll stay cute forever…but Dad made her take that back.”

“You’re not even cute now, so no RESET will help.”

“Aww, don’t be mean, Flowey!”

“Well, I’m assuming that the River-Person was just overwhelmed by your ugliness and that’s why they tried to murder us.”

“You…really think that?”

“No, idiot, I’m being sarcastic.”

“So why do you think they knocked us off, Flowey? They never did anything like that before. It can’t be because you were with me, they took both me and you back to the Hotland when I came to get you last time…”

“Well, they always have been a few boats shy of a navy,” said Flowey with a chuckle that was a tad nervous. That nagging feeling of wrongness was stronger than ever now. His stem felt like it was about to burst with trepidation.

Or maybe that was just Frisk cuddling up to him. He would have normally chastised the child for being so snuggly, but the kid needed to keep warm and so he decided to let it pass even as he felt tremendously awkward…but strangely enough, not entirely frustrated.

“Frisk, take a nap,” he commanded. “You’ll stay warmer that way.”

“Like a hibernating bear!” declared Frisk.

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”

“Dad says bears hibernate for months on end! He says he wants to hibernate like that! We’re both gonna get as much food as we can and then we’re gonna find a little place in a basement and hibernate together for one whoooole winter!”

“Oh, will you stop prattling on about that pathetic excuse for a father and go to sleep!?”

He snapped out of frustration, but when the child fell totally silent, becoming as tense as a stretched string, his glare melted into a soft, curious frown.

“Ahhh…Frisk?”

“Flowey…” whispered Frisk, his normally bright and cheerful tone disturbingly melancholic. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up down here? Why I fell down?”

“I…” muttered Flowey clumsily “I had just assumed you climbed the mountain, found a hole and, being a world class idiot, dove right in.”

“I was looking for a stick.”

“A…stick?” repeated Flowey with disbelief, that feeling of uneasiness in his being becoming utterly overwhelming as he could practically sense the sorrow emanating off of the small child. “You climbed the mountain to get a _stick?”_

“I already had the stick…and it wasn’t for me, it was for my foster-dad.”

“Foster…?”

“I murdered my mother.”

It was such a direct, cold statement. The same statement that Flowey had uttered to himself many times after many runs where he, in his morbid curiosity, had ended up slaying Toriel. But here it carried a certain weight, the weight of an act that could not be easily retracted.

“You…what? But…Frisk…”

“When I was a baby, while I was being born, I murdered her.”

Flowey blinked. Oh. _Oh._

He laughed uneasily. “I… I’ve murdered alotta people alotta times, buddy, so trust me when I say that what happened to your mom, that wasn’t your fault. That wasn’t murder.”

“It was, though,” sniffled Frisk, barely subduing a sob as his little voice began to crack. “And…well, I guess he’s not my _real_ father, but, you know, that one…he wasn’t ready for the responsibility. So one day…the day before I turned three, he just took me to the park, sat me on a bench, promised he’d be right back…and he never came back.”

Flowey shook his little head. Abandonment was unnaturally rare amongst the monsters. Parents adored their children no matter what, no matter how much of a burden they could be, no matter what they were, no matter if they had arms or legs or not.

No matter what, even if they were human. Even if they had been turned into a soulless plant that couldn’t return their love no matter how much he tried…

But even he had _tried_ before simply running away, and he was the child in the equation. He could never imagine Asgore or Toriel or Sans abandoning their own (or even someone else’s) just because they weren’t _ready._

The floodgates of Frisk’s past had been opened and he wasn’t about to stop. Flowey felt his nonexistent soul sink like a heavy stone in water as Frisk continued:

“I got picked up by a police officer…she told me I was really lucky, but I never really felt lucky until I fell down here. I was in a place called a…I forget, it started with an ‘O’, it was hard to pronounce.”

“’Orphanage,’” supplied Flowey.

“Yeah, I think that was it, but I wasn’t there too often because they kept giving me to these people, they called them foster parents. I had a few nice ones, but I didn’t get to stay there too long with them. I kept getting moved around and a lot of the foster people I went with really didn’t like me that much.”

“Then why did they take you in?”

“’Cause they got money every month for taking care of me, and as long as I didn’t cost them too much they got to make a lot of money. So I had to wear hand-me-downs and I never got my hair cut. That was okay, though: I like my clothes and my hair. But…I got some _really_ bad ones, and a lot of the time they wanted me to do a lot of work, and if I didn’t they’d…well, they’d hit me. And it hurt worse than friendliness pellets when they did that, Flowey. And they’d yell at me…and, well…”

He inhaled deeply. “The last person I was with lived right next to Mt. Ebott, and if I didn’t keep everything clean he’d tell me to go outside and find him a big stick. Then I’d bring it back and he’d thwack me with it. Well, one time I messed up and…I’d messed up the bother day too and he hit me really hard, that’s why I had that old bandage on. Anyway, I went out, got the stick, saw Mt. Ebott…and…I just couldn’t go back there! I figured it’d be better to see what was up there and never come back. I thought maybe I’d meet someone up there that was nice, so I just ran and ran and…I fell. And I got everything I wanted. I got friends, a nice house, a great Mom, a great Dad…”

“So that’s just the thing, Flowey. I don’t need a dad who’s all tough and royal and stuff…I jus’ need someone who’ll take a job to pay for my college…and who’ll tell me jokes and make me laugh…and who’ll dunk me into bed…and who’ll help me prank call the kids at school who bully me. And who’ll take me to the park and take me home right afterwards That’s all, really, that’s all.”

Silence descended upon the pair. The only sound to be heard was the sloshing of the water. Flowey wasn’t sure what to say. In another lifetime, he recalled Asriel having nothing to say when a certain little girl had told her own sad story.

He shook his head. That lifetime was gone. He was Flowey. This was Frisk. He couldn’t just say nothing.

“Uh…Frisk…I’m…sorry…you had to go through that…” he stumbled. “You…a person like you really doesn’t deserve that. You deserved a lot better.”

“Flowey,” said Frisk, peeking out from under Flowey’s protective vines and smiling gently at his roommate. “It’s okay, it really is. I’m happy now. I’m really, really happy. I’ve got friends and family and a Mom and a Dad and an Uncle and you…so don’t feel too bad for me…and you don’t have to stop making fun’a me if you don’t want to, don’t feel guilty about it! I consider it affectionate!”

Flowey chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry about that, buddy, I’m _never_ gonna be completely and totally _nice_ to you. But, uh, I mean it, you do deserve better, and…well, if you’re happy, that’s good…”

He looked away awkwardly and he heard Frisk snicker.

“Flowey, Flowey, Flowey,” sighed the boy, “You’re such a Tsundre-Plane!”

Flowey’s face heated up. “W-what? What the heck is _that_ supposed to mean!? Whatever, I don’t even care, just go to sleep and don’t freeze to death! We’re gonna be floating for awhile now and I’d rather put up with your obnoxious snoring than your obnoxious singing!”

“ _Ohhhhh…!”_

_“No….”_

_“Row, row, row, your ice, gently down the lake! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, then we’ll take a break!”_

“Ugh, me and my big mouth…”


End file.
